EU: The authorisation of genetically modified products in the European Union is about to resume, after a standstill of five and half years.
Monday's meeting of EU farm ministers in Luxembourg, to be chaired by the Minister, for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, will herald the end of a de facto moratorium on authorising GMOs that has applied since in October 1998.
The EU is already fielding a wave of new applications from biotech companies wishing to add to the list of 18 products which were approved before an upsurge of political and consumer fears about the so-called "Frankenstein foods".
Although the 15 EU member-states are still deeply divided over GMOs, the opposition now appears insufficient to stymie all new authorisations.
"It is something of a pivot decision," an EU diplomat said.
Farm ministers will be asked by Mr Walsh whether they are prepared to authorise a strain of sweet corn, Bt11 maize, from the Swiss company Syngenta.
Diplomats in Brussels are confidently expecting that there will be no significant change in opinion among the states since the matter was voted on at a regulatory committee of officials at the end of January.
At that meeting, with votes weighted to take account of the states' populations, the result was 33 votes in favour (Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Spain), 29 votes against (France, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg) and 25 abstentions (Germany, Italy, Belgium).
On that basis, there will not be a sufficient majority to authorise the Bt11 outright but nor will there be a sufficient majority to block the authorisation.
So, under the EU's complicated procedures, it will fall to the European Commission to decide. Since the Commission proposed approval in the first place, it is clear that when given the chance it will authorise Bt11.
Ireland's European Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, who has responsibility for health and consumer protection, has been arguing that the de facto moratorium is legally indefensible.
With his colleague, the Environment Commissioner, Ms Margot Wallstrom, he has steered through a tightening of the EU's rules on authorising GMOs.
Mr Byrne's spokeswoman said yesterday that there was no deadline for the Commission to give its decision on Bt11 after the council.
"It is within our discretion," she said.
She stressed that the Commission would deal with the following applications "case by case".
Farm and biotech companies have pressed the United States government to take action at the World Trade Organisation against the EU's moratorium.
Meanwhile, the environmental campaign group Greenpeace is lobbying European supermarket chains to dissuade them from stocking products containing GMOs.